As I sit here with Annabelle still in her tight home and my dropped belly, I find myself still longing for the day she screams her arrival. I have days of misery where everything hurts and she elbows me more than my brothers on a bad day. I have days where the tears flow freely as fear enters the folds of my mind as I fathom the extent of parenthood for a lifetime…or even parenthood for the first day! I wake up at night not being able to lie down due to nausea and pain so I pace the hall way and try to sleep in a chair. “Lord, wouldn’t it be cool to have her born on Easter? I could tell her about her first birth and about the hope of a second birth because of what happened on Easter!!” Yeah, I’ve had similar thoughts before, haven’t you? Where you tell the Lord how great it would be for a person to hear the sermon you are listening to or if this certain circumstance would happen how much faith would be grown in you or a loved one? Isn’t it funny that we still try to manipulate our will to make it sound holy and God glorifying? Yeah…funny.
In the meantime the Lord has been humbling me with living faithfully for Him in serving my husband with little everyday things like packing lunches, buying plants, and cleaning the toilet. I’ve been able to greet a new chaplain at the airport that came on island this week without his family, see Barrett’s men and women compete in different team building events, have lunch with his fellow officers, be surrounded by his female marines who just want to hang, have Easter lunch for the new chaplain whose lonely with his family still in the states and for 3 other single marines who haven’t been off the base for months. We’ve been able to visit another new mom and give her a meal and hear about the joys of her experience of welcoming her new little girl into this world and have another dinner with Aya to show her the love of Christ.
I guess I can’t stop living while I await a new life. There is no pause button or time out.
This morning I was reading in Ephesians chapter 1, what I have in Christ, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight…” Wow. Nothing in that points to my works, desires, or perceived needs. Its really all about Him. Christ died and rose again to conquer the sin debt for the glory of His Father…to complete the Father’s will. We are the beneficiary of this perfect work, but not the sole aim. My aim should be the same, not for seeming relief, but to honor my Father in heaven. So I repent…again…of trying to make my desires the Lord’s and am reminded of what my aim should be, glorifying my Lord and savior who completed His Fathers will by humbling going to the cross to pay the sin debt that I owe and rose victoriously fulfilling that payment of death and conquering it so that I have eternal life by placing my trust and faith in Him.
Happy Resurrection Day My Friends!